**LIVE** Republican Presidential Debate at Reagan Library - Wednesday 9:00PM EDT

FreeRepublic ^ | September 27, 2023 | Reno89519

[Political Junkie Too]

Thanks.

Christie did better than I expected, but he's on a vendetta against President Trump and isn't going anywhere. He won't be invited into a Trump administration, either.

Pence exposed himself as an empty suit. His answers were nothing but platitudes without actions, except for stripping mass shooters of their full access to the courts (and sleeping with teachers). We already have a judge in New York who wants to seize Trump's business without due process from Trump's 7th amendment rights; we don't need another rights-grabber no matter how heinous Pence's example was to justify it.

Burgham is an interesting character. He seems like a decent guy, smart, business minded, and practical. He seems to me to be a kindred spirit to President Trump, except he's from the Dakotas instead of Queens, and from IT instead of real estate. I think he's made his point that he'd be a capable Cabinet member (perhaps Energy with his Bakken experience, though he may need to publicly moderate some of his social positions).

The big disappoint for me is Tim Scott. He must have drank whatever Al Gore had in 2000. He seems to have learned the wrong lesson from Dr. Ben Carson in 2015 ("I wish someone would attack me so I can have some time to speak"). After being mostly ignored in the first debate, he came out acting like a bully this time, hurling charges at people and then childishly interrupting their responses, like "You said 10 cents!!!!" as Nikki Haley was explaining how she agreed to 10 cent gas tax hike in exchange for a 3x reduction in taxes elsewhere or why she didn't return used curtains that were in place before she moved into the Ambassador's residence. He definitely wasn't exemplifying the best of "the world's most deliberative body" at the debate.

I think I agree with you that those four will drop out, but I do think that Burgham may have passed the résumé test, at least enough for hiring managers to take a second look (but not for VP).

-PJ